In an unprecedented move, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Met) will absorb the Neue Galerie New York in 2028, dedicated to Austrian and German art from the early 20th century. This operation will transfer the Neue Galerie building at 1048 Fifth Avenue to the Met, as well as a collection of 600 works whose total value is estimated at more than 1.5 billion dollars (1.3 billion euros).
The estimate takes into account the collection which includes masterpieces by Klimt, Schiele, Kirchner and Beckmann, but also the heritage value of the William Starr Miller House, at 1048 Fifth Avenue, one of the few mansions from the “golden age” of the late 19th century in New York still preserved on Fifth Avenue. The Neue Galerie will become a branch of the Met under the official name The Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie or, informally, “The Met Neue”. The organizational model chosen is inspired by the Cloisters, the medieval branch of the Met installed in Washington Heights since 1938: a site distinct from the main building, but placed under the authority and management of the Met.
As part of the agreement, Ronald Lauder (82 years old) and his daughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer (56 years old) undertake to also donate thirteen works of art of Austrian and German modernity from their personal collections to the future branch of the Met. Among them are The Dancer by Gustav Klimt (1916–1918), The Russian Dancer Mela by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1911), or even Galleria Umberto by Max Beckmann (1925). Works by Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad and Franz Marc have also been promised.
The merger fills a gap in the Met’s encyclopedic collections. Max Hollein, the director of the MET himself declared to the New York Times : “This is an area where the Met’s collection is not very developed. If you look at Vienna 1900, Berlin in the 1920s, it was the epicenter of the development of the avant-garde”.
The Met plans to establish an endowment fund of 200 million dollars (178 million euros) to ensure the long-term management of the site. At the time of the announcement, nearly 80% of this sum had already been raised. Funding includes a major gift from historic Met trustee Marina Kellen French, as well as contributions from more than two dozen museum trustees. Ronald Lauder and Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer will also participate in the fund and cover the integration costs of the Neue Galerie.
La Neue Galerie will temporarily close in May to undertake infrastructure renovation work. The museum will reopen in the fall with an exhibition celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, scheduled for November. The merger and formal takeover by the Met is expected to come into effect in 2028, subject to necessary approvals. A joint advisory committee was created to support this transition, under the chairmanship of Ronald Lauder. The Neue Galerie teams will be maintained, while the programming, the boutique and the Café Sabarsky will continue to operate.
This merger is the result of a long-standing personal and institutional relationship between Ronald Lauder, founder of the Neue Galerie, and Max Hollein (56), general director of the Met. The latter, an art historian of Viennese origin appointed to head the Met in April 2018 then general director in July 2023, has served on the board of directors of the Neue Galerie since 2006. Formal discussions on the merger began in the summer of 2025, at the initiative of Ronald Lauder, who wanted to guarantee the sustainability of the collection for the public.
The Neue Galerie was born from the friendship between Ronald S. Lauder, heir to Estée Lauder (founder of the eponymous cosmetics brand), and Serge Sabarsky (1912–1996), Viennese gallery owner exiled in New York and specialist in Austro-German expressionism. After decades of joint project, in 1994 they acquired the William Starr Miller House on Fifth Avenue, restored by Annabelle Selldorf, before the museum opened in 2001.
The Neue Galerie today has one of the most important collections of 20th century Austrian and German art outside Europe, with works by Klimt, Schiele, Kandinsky, Kokoschka, Beckmann and Klee. His iconic masterpiece is the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt, known as “the Golden Lady”, acquired by Ronald S. Lauder in 2006 for approximately $135 million after its restitution to the Bloch-Bauer family as part of the Nazi spoliations.
